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Absolutely disgusting sight on such a beautiful island. 
shogun wrote:Was watching something similar on the BBC. Human kind really effing up. Literally islands of plastic floating around our oceans being consumed, digested and regurgitated by it's inhabitants.... even the birds not safe. We should atleast have shifted to bioplastics and began moving away from plastics made from raw petrochemicals by now?
Soul Collector wrote:Went Chacachacare for the first time on a hike last year. One huge part of the coast was pure rubbish, plastic making up the majority of it. Had one point where we literally couldn't see the end of it
In 2016, global plastic waste amounted to some 242 million metric tons. Of this, 137 million tonnes (or more than 57%) originated in East Asia, the Pacific, Europe, Central Asia and North America, much of which made its way into the ocean. In 2015, the Journal of Science surveyed 192 coastal countries and confirmed that Asian nations, most notably China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, were 13 of the 20 biggest contributors of marine plastic waste. But as is often the case, numbers alone do not tell the entire story.
Case in point: the little island of St. Lucia, which produces the 6th largest amount of plastic waste per capita in the Caribbean, generates more than four times the amount of plastic waste per person as China— the world’s largest plastic polluter in absolute terms— and is responsible for 1.2 times more improperly disposed plastic waste per capita than China. (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser in https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution)
Of the top thirty global polluters per capita, ten are from the Caribbean region. These are Trinidad & Tobago, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts & Nevis, Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia, Bahamas, Grenada, Anguilla and Aruba; and every year, these ten island nations generate more plastic debris than the weight of 20,000 space shuttles.
Of the top thirty global polluters per capita, ten are from the Caribbean region.
Of the top thirty global polluters per capita, ten are from the Caribbean region. GETTY
Today In: Business
The biggest culprit is Trinidad & Tobago, which produces a whopping 3.6 kilograms of plastic waste per capita per day— the largest in the world— and almost six times more than Kuwait, which is in distant second place. At least 5% per capita per day (or 0.19 kg per person per day) of this plastic debris is almost guaranteed to end up in the ocean due to improper disposal, amounting to more marine plastic originating in Trinidad & Tobago (per capita) than 98% of the countries in the world. (2010)
Scientists find about a quarter million invisible nanoplastic particles in a liter of bottled water
https://apnews.com/article/plastic-nano-bottled-drinking-water-contaminate-b77dce04539828207fe55ebac9b27283
The average liter of bottled water has nearly a quarter million invisible pieces of ever so tiny nanoplastics, detected and categorized for the first time by a microscope using dual lasers.
Scientists long figured there were lots of these microscopic plastic pieces, but until researchers at Colombia and Rutgers universities did their calculations they never knew how many or what kind. Looking at five samples each of three common bottled water brands, researchers found particle levels ranged from 110,000 to 400,000 per liter, averaging at around 240,000 according to a study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
These are particles that are less than a micron in size. There are 25,400 microns — also called micrometers because it is a millionth of a meter — in an inch. A human hair is about 83 microns wide.
Previous studies have looked at slightly bigger microplastics that range from the visible 5 millimeters, less than a quarter of an inch, to one micron. About 10 to 100 times more nanoplastics than microplastics were discovered in bottled water, the study found.
Much of the plastic seems to be coming from the bottle itself and the reverse osmosis membrane filter used to keep out other contaminants, said study lead author Naixin Qian, a Colombia physical chemist. She wouldn’t reveal the three brands because researchers want more samples before they single out a brand and want to study more brands. Still, she said they were common and bought at a WalMart.
